Article Written for:  Law360.com

Americans place a high value on privacy, dating back to the foundation of our country and the Fourth Amendment right to be secure in our “persons, houses, papers, and effects.” Interestingly, the word “privacy” is not found in the Fourth Amendment. Over time and through legal battles, however, courts have come to recognize a fundamental “zone of privacy” contained within the “penumbra” of rights protected by the Constitution.[1] Now, with advances in artificially intelligent devices and machine learning, individuals willingly sacrifice that hard-fought privacy in return for the many conveniences offered by “smart” digital assistants.

Article Written for:  Forbes.com

If you have an Amazon Echo, try this: Say, "Alexa, tell me a joke," but do it very quickly so that you finish the request before Alexa "wakes up" (indicated on the Echo by the blue light). Did you notice that Alexa dutifully complied, seemingly catching the request before she (it?) was awake? There is a simple explanation for this: Alexa (like other artificially intelligent digital assistants) is always listening. Indeed, Alexa starts recording "a fraction of a second” before the wake word. Google Home listens to snippets of conversations to detect the "hotword."